


Losing Sight I

by Nad98



Series: Between Black and White [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:00:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nad98/pseuds/Nad98
Summary: Preservation woke up one day with a hurting eye. The following night he fell asleep with a light as his eye and woke up the next day with his first scale.Janus hated that nightmare more than anything.(Takes place directly after the last chapter ofThe Lie of Black and White. Can be read on its own though.)
Relationships: Deceit | Janus Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Between Black and White [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810210
Comments: 12
Kudos: 71





	Losing Sight I

**Author's Note:**

> You can listen to Losing Sight I [here](https://soundcloud.com/nada-st-50573248/losing-sight-i)^^

_Preservation felt bad. He didn’t know what was happening and why it was happening, just that it was happening. His left eye burnt, so bad, so bad. But he couldn’t ask Empathy for help again. He didn’t even know where he was to begin with. Where was Empathy?_

_Empathy was always there, he never left Preservation alone and the little side felt himself tear up. He was alone, his eye hurt and the left side of his periphery started to blur and grow darker. It was new and scary and it made him even weaker and more vulnerable than he already was. And he couldn’t allow himself to get any weaker. He needed to toughen up, to get strong and independent, since Empathy would eventually leave him or die trying to protect him and then he needed to fight on his own and-_

_What if it had already happened? What if Empathy had left or died while he had been asleep? That thought broke him and Preservation started to whimper quietly. The tears burnt badly in his left eye and only caused more pain and more tears which felt even worse and the little side didn’t know what to do anymore. He was alone and he would die. Alone. Die alone._

_Without his Empathy._

_“Preservation!”_

_A voice above him. Desperately Preservation looked up and saw Empathy hover down from the ceiling. Needy he held his arms out for Empathy, who immediately embraced the other heartily._

_“Where were you?” Preservation asked after he felt that his tears had stopped._

_Empathy now kneeled in front of him, holding his hands tightly and safely. Guiltily he looked over to the mirror that had lately appeared on their bedroom wall and let his eyes fall back on Preservation._

_“I was going inside the mirror. Into the _Imagination_ ” – The word was filled with distain and suspicion, - “to see if something bad was in there.”_

_“And is there?” Preservation asked and rubbed his left eye which was still burning even after he had stopped crying._

_Worriedly Empathy watched Preservation rub his eye but answered dutifully: “There is, yes. I need to keep an eye on it. Can’t have anything of it come in here and hurt you or Thomas.”_

_Preservation gave him a sympathetic smile in return and Empathy giggled a little before he noticed Preservation’s hand reaching again for his left eye and finally asked him: “What’s wrong with your eye? Does it hurt?”_

_Instinctively, Preservation tried to hide his eye away and turn his face away from Empathy, but he was too slow. Empathy saw in horror that part of Preservation’s left yellow eye started to be taken over by a white gloss._

_“What happened!” Empathy yelled in panic immediately turned Preservation’s face back towards himself._

_Then Empathy noticed how fast Preservation’s breathing had gotten and let go of his friend. He instantly relaxed a little and let his shoulders slump down weakly. Empathy forced himself to wait and give Preservation time to speak up on his own, despite himself feeling incredibly worried._

_“I… I don’t know. I just woke up to the pain… and I was so lonely… I think … I’m losing my sight on this eye”, Preservation whispered and weakly pointed towards his eye._

_Empathy let that sink in for a moment. Then his expressions grew stern, as stern as a roughly five-year-old could be, and shook his head._

_Preservation eyed him confused. He had told him the truth for once. Why was he shaking his head now?_

_“I won’t let that happen”, Empathy stated as if it was the most logical thing he could have ever said and lifted his hand towards his chest._

_Preservation just stared. The cyan heart-shaped light in the middle of Empathy’s chest was the most beautiful thing in the whole Mindscape. Preservation was sure of it. He also believed that it was the most powerful and important thing in existence but Empathy disagreed. Maybe it was the one thing Empathy lied about. At least, Preservation considered that to be a possibility._

_“You need that”, Preservation said silently as Empathy started to grab the light in his chest._

_But Empathy only shook his head._

_“I do not. And I won’t have you hurt; you hear me?”_

_And with that Empathy’s little hand enclosed the light on his chest and pulled it out with a little jolt. Particles started to spiral around it and Empathy looked at it for a moment before he slowly lifted it up towards Preservation’s face._

_In awe Preservation watched the light and saw it change its colour form cyan to yellow as it came ever closer to his eye. And then he held his head still and closed his eyes so Empathy could do what he had said he would do._

* * *

“Don’t do it, Empathy!”

Janus sat upright in his bed, soaked from sweat and shaken by a dream too identical to reality. Immediately he covered his mouth with his left and stared towards the door of his room. Nobody had heard him, right?

They weren’t supposed to know. They simply _couldn’t_ know.

Heavily, Janus heaved himself out of bed. He hated it but he had to change out of his clothes. He’d get too cold in them and would start to stink would he not change them now and that meant he had to take a shower and – That meant his skin being exposed to the cold, cold air for an even longer period of time. And so, he started undressing in front of his wardrobe as he thought about his dream.

The moment when the light had been inserted into his eye was blurred in his memories. It hadn’t hurt, it just felt fuzzy, almost cosy. Immediately his vision had been restored but the form of his eye had also permanently changed. The slit for a pupil had been there from that moment on.

Empathy – Patton – had reassured him that it wasn’t bad. That he loved his eye just as much as before. And Janus believed him. He believed that to him his eye was just as “beautiful” as before.

Janus swallowed the lump which had formed in his throat and pulled his new clean undershirt over his head. It was pathetic. Pathetic how much his body, his thoughts screamed for Patton to come and hold him. He couldn’t have that.

There was no Empathy and Preservation anymore. They were Patton and Janus now. Morality and Deceit.

No more “only you and me”. No more Empathy looking after him and caring and protecting him. No more Empathy who kissed the wicked first scale that had appeared the next day right beneath his eye after he had gotten the light.

It had been the worst pain Janus had ever felt. All the other scales weren’t nearly as painful when they formed, even the ones that were appearing lately on the upper part of his left thigh. And they stung and so, so much.

The only thing that came even a little close to it, were the four additional arms that sprouted exactly a week after everything had gone down.

And then, there came Curiosity and Creativity. Indigo and Magenta. The Imagination immediately became Creativity’s playground and Empathy didn’t need to fight anymore. He didn’t want to fight anymore. He became more caring and nurturing and less aggressive with Creativity’s presence around and Janus had less to worry about.

Or Deceit had less to worry about. Janus hugged himself tightly as the thought rushed through his mind. Deceit the name he had chosen just a day before Curiosity and Creativity had come. No longer harmless Preservation, but strong Deceit.

Who was he kidding? The title was a bluff back then. He still had been a child, trying to preservere himself but also stupidly caring Empathy. But he didn’t know how to fight, how to conduct a confrontation. So, he learnt to deceive his way through the world. To hide; himself, his weaknesses, his motives, what he cared about. What he loved.

Who he loved.

It was just yesterday when he had gotten his hug from Remus. Just yesterday when he had told him he loved him and that he needed to care for him. It had meant for him to be vulnerable and he had been so hesitant to it for decades.

Strangely, it had worked with Remus. Maybe because the look in his eyes which wasn’t so much unlike Patton’s. Maybe because Remus never asked for anything from Janus. Maybe because he intentionally looked over Janus’s flaws and acted more ignorant than he was. Janus didn’t know.

Lost Janus went into his kitchen and got a bottle of wine. In here he couldn’t get drunk anyway, so why not just drink as much as he pleased? Absentmindedly, he filled his glass and mused. Which of the others were able to find out about him and Patton?

Remus, luckily enough, has never been too eager to talk about or with Patton. He felt as if Patton was repulsed by him and Janus had never bothered to try and explain that that reaction might stem from Patton, seeing a different version of Remus or even himself in those actions. And like this Remus had never even gotten close to lift their secret.

Virgil and Logan were both dangerous. Smart and quick to make connections. Logan had known them for the longest but wasn’t too eager to make sense of the connections between Patton and Janus, which worked just fine for Janus. Virgil was more intuitive but he still hadn’t realized how much more there was behind a lot of Patton’s behaviour and that had stopped him from finding important clues.

And Roman. Roman was dangerous. Roman apparently knew of Janus’s nightmares, maybe not what they were, but that they existed. He was the holder of the Ego and the Shield. And integral part of Preservation and Empathy. And he had an eye for detail. It was why Janus had tried to not interact too much with him, since he had formed as well as –

As the fact that he acted way more like An- Creativity than Remus ever had. And Janus never liked Creativity. It made him nervous and he had always feared that he would mess everything up for the rest of them. He never did in the end but he assumed that he would have been the one to find out if any ever had.

He had emptied half of the bottle and realized that he was shivering. Tiered and wobbling he got up and threw over a poncho and the ugliest knitted bonnet Remus had gifted him when they were twelve. It was absolutely hideous but, as the devil wanted, it was the warmest and comfiest thing in the world and Janus would never let Remus know this.

The poncho also was a gift. By Virgil. Patchwork. Not the best patchwork. Really not that good patchwork. But it was made by his little one and it warmed him more than it should.

Silently, he sat back and filled his glass again. He was silently crying and took a small sip. He felt nostalgic for his little ones. Nostalgic for Patton. No, he longed for Patton. For his heart.

For the heart he had worn on his chest.

The heart that was now hidden in plain sight.


End file.
